I discovered an email I’d received seventeen years ago, from a CD buyer, with a tally of what it was paying me for my entire collection—a dollar here, two there, sometimes $8.50 for some obscure reason. As I scrolled down the list there were titles I recognized, some I’d completely forgotten. The artists, even. But I realized this was music I loved, that I listened to again and again—physical objects in my possession, occupying space in my home. Necessarily I played them. Necessarily I loved them. But since I’d sold them—impulsively, heedlessly, but not unwisely after all—they were out of my life.

So much has been lost. And maybe, realizing this, something might be regained.